Cannabis users often insisted that weed stimulates creativity and helps with focus.

The Washington Post noted that a host of well-known geniuses and luminaries have also supported this idea, including Apple’s co-founder and CEO AAPL Steve Jobs, who famously said weed made him feel “relaxed and creative.” Astronomer and author Carl Sagan also believed that cannabis helps induce “serenity and insight.” And then there’s Tesla TSLA and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who tried the plant and expressed general approval. And let’s not forget Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby, who spoke openly about the importance of cannabis in their music and life.

Despite these common beliefs about the creative potency of cannabis, the scientific consensus remains unclear.

The Washington Post reported that new research suggests cannabis may not open the door to creativity after all.

“Almost everyone thinks cannabis makes them more creative. And it appears that this assumption is not supported by the data,” said study author Christopher Barnes, professor of organizational behavior at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business.

Cannabis improves mood, but not necessarily creativity

Researchers originally hypothesized that cannabis would indirectly increase creativity by making users feel happier and more relaxed.

To test this idea, they designed a randomized controlled trial involving 107 volunteers who consumed little weed and compared their creative results to those who hadn’t.

For the control group, the researchers asked 84 other participants to complete a task only if they had not used cannabis in the past 12 hours, presumably after the effects wore off.

For the creativity test, the participants were asked to think of a building block and generate as many creative uses for it as possible in four minutes.

As expected, the participants were in a better mood and happier when they were under the influence of alcohol feel How…